saleen springs vs eibach pro lines
 

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the ride height difference would be between the saleen springs and eibachs pro line springs. im thinking that the sportlines will be too low but i want to go slightly lower.

thanks

RE: saleen springs vs eibach pro lines
 

Hi Saleen#468,

Eibach makes Pro-Kit and Sportline sport springs. Pro-Kit springs lowerd my car's ride height 1.5" in front and 1.7" in back once they settled in after a few thousand miles. The Eibach Sportline sport springslower the car an extra 0.25" in front and 0.5" lower in back. The Pro-Kit springs are pretty low and are probably too low for most people for a daily driver. I foundthe Pro-Kit springs lowered the car excessively and lacked enoughspring rate to prevent the car from bottomingfrequently. This frequent bottoming caused the carto handle poorly on any sort of irregular road surfaces when the car is pushed even moderately. The body is also lowered so much that the passengerside door usually cannot be opened enough for passengers to loadwithout hitting the curb and I usually had to pull the car out from the curb to allow passengers to ge in the car.Sportlines being an additonal 0.25"-0.5" lower are simply too low for any regular street use and you will scrape through driveways and hit parkingbumpers regularly. Ihavebeen undercars with Sportlines installed and they had noting but trouble with the dampers bottoming regularly as in all the time.At the rear the Sportlines are sittingjust 0.25"off the Eibach suppplied, much shorter1" bumpstops. The cars with Sportline springs I have inspected have shown major bottoming problems and this leads to very poor handling. TheSportlines are excessively low and if you look at the majority of dedicated S197GT race cars you willsee thatmost only lower the car 1"-1.25" front and rear even with much higher spring rates. This is to prevent the car from bottoming out all the time and causing the car to have handling problems due to bottoming out and the negative geometryeffects of excessively lowering the car. The problems are made worseif you use tires that are shorter than the stock 27" tall.

I just pulled a set of Saleen Sport springs and Roushdampers out of aRoush Stage 2 car a couple of days ago. The Roush dampers wereall leaking heavily and two of them wereprobably out ofoil due to the excessive leaking as the car was handling very poorly and making noises. Anyway I installed a fresh set of Tokico D-Specs anda set of Eibach Pro-Kitsprings and the car looked pretty low on its 20" wheels with 255/35x20's in front and 275/35x20tires mountedon the rear. The Sportlines would have been much too low even on a car with slightly taller than stock tires. As it was the front air dam was too low and I warned the owner to take is easy in and out of driveways to avoid damaging the spoiler lip. Even with the taller tires this car was marginal for ride height. If you have stock 27" tall tires you can get away with thePro-KitSport springs. But if you are like a lot of people who are on aftermarket wheels and tires you probably have a shorter wheel and tire combination because this is what the tire salesmen are used to selling on the last gen Mustangs and also because shorter wheel and tire combinations make for less trouble in terms of wider wheel and tirefitment and clearance problems so you can sell that wheel with a less than perfect offset and still have it fit sort of O.K.

With an S197Saleenon Saleen20" wheels and factory rubberyour car is pretty much at its optimum ride height right out of the box. But you can go lower if you are willing to compromise your ride and handling somewhat as you will be doing with Pro-Kit springs. Additionally when you swap out the Saleen Sport springs for Eibach Pro-Kit springs those Saleen spec dampers will not have enough rebound dampening rate to fully control thestifferPro-Kit springs. Over the last couple/threeyears I have been tryingto find a Sport spring set with the right combination ofspring rates and ride heights that I could be happy with on a set of D-Specs. I found a nearly perfectly balanced set of springs in the Steeda Competition springs. The Steeda Competitionspring rates front and rear gavegood balance and left plenty of suspension travel giving me an excellent ride with excellent resistence to brake dive and body rollbut their ride height specs at both ends of the car was just too tall. So havingmeasuredmost of the stiffer sport springs on the market from many of the major spring makers on a German made high precision (0.000000N, sixdigits!) digital load cell spring tester.

So I know the right spring ratesI needed but I could not find a commercially available spring that met my needs. So I wound up with a set of Steeda Coilovers which are basically aTokico D-Spec damper in a custom madecoilover strut body in front and a set of adjustable height axle seats and off-the-shelf Tokico D-Spec rear dampers in the usual location. This is what Steeda callstheir Adjustable Suspension system.With what I know now about the springs available on the market and the trouble and work I went through looking for the perfect springsI would make the jump straight awayto coilovers. I can highly suggestspending the money for a goodcoilover setupthat uses standard straight sidedracing coilover springswith at least single adjustable dampersso I could pick my own spring rates, set my own damping ratesand set my own ride height at will. I swore I would not build another race car out of this new car but here I am again. But the suspensionworks just about perfectly now and I havenot driven another car that's as sharp handling with as goodride motions and qualityand resonable noise levels.

HTH!

RE: saleen springs vs eibach pro lines
 

Wow that was a long write up for a short question;).....great material! Thanks

RE: saleen springs vs eibach pro lines
 

Hi mygt500,

Did it help you?

Cheers!

RE: saleen springs vs eibach pro lines
 

Hey there, #468, you double poster you ;)

F1, I had this issue with my FRPP springs I installed in my '85 GT many years back. I was able to remove the spring pads, upper & lower,to solve this issue. I heard stories of noise in spring seats,so used heavy grease at top/bottom of springs, and never heard a peep (or rather, screech) :)

Of course, you will then loose a little suspension travel, so maybe you tried that [&o]

Jazzer

RE: saleen springs vs eibach pro lines
 

jaz,
well i figured i would ask the suspension guru's. and im glad i did. after reading a few posts over here i found that there are alot of very knowledgable people here.

F1,
my car is a daily driver that only sees light track use so i dont think i will be doing the spring swap now. i was looking at coil overs but i dont have the knowledge to be messing with things that have that much adjustability.

RE: saleen springs vs eibach pro lines
 

Wow....excellent write up. I don't have an S197, but I learned a lot from this.

RE: saleen springs vs eibach pro lines
 

F1Fan, awesome write-up and much appreciated.

I love my Saleen's stock ride height and handling,but wish the ride was more compliant over rough midwestern roads--it can be pretty harsh and I am used to stiff suspensions. Do you have any idea how the Steeda Adjustable Suspensionsystemyou mentioned would compare in ride quality andhandling ability versus the Saleen system?

RE: saleen springs vs eibach pro lines
 

Hi Bob D.,

Astock Saleen S281has the chassis at a reasonable ride height andwith the taller thanFord OE stock wheels and tires the wheel wells look full without having to drop the car 2".Saleen leaves the car with plenty of ground clearance and suspensoi travel and you can still open the doors and not scrape the door bottoms on the curbing. IMOa stock Saleen looks just about perfect as far as thetires and wheels filling out the wheel wells.

Regarding the question ofrideif you are still on the stock Pirelli PZero Rosso tires that is about 40% of your ride problem. The other 60% of your ride issues is thewack Saleen dampers. When you are up to it pull the stock N2 dampers out and replace them with D-Spec adjustable dampers. Chances are they are already leaking anyway. You will be happywith the difference in suspension suppleness you can achive with a simple 2-3 minute adjustment. The D-Specs also retain good body control even at lower damper settings but as you get more agressive you will need to turn up the damper settings. My car has the Steeda Adjustable coilover suspension and it can be setup to ride very well with more moderate spring rates. I have tried some of the lower spring rates andhigher spring rates and have settleddown with the firmer end of the streetable spring rates to keep the car from bottoming on the bumpy canyon roads I like to drive and still allow me to run a moderately low ride height. If you do not set the ride heighttoo low you do not need to use such stiff spring ratesas Iam using (250#F and 200#R) and the more normal Steeda Sport springs rates of 200lb. in front and 165lbs. at the rear can be used no problems at about the same ride height as your Saleen springs . This makes for apretty comfy ride and still good handling because you can turn down the damping rates of the D-Spec dampers Steeda used for the front coilover'sinternals.

HTH!